Hanukkah in Germany, 1931

Some say the candles are actually lit, but the old film process couldn't capture it.

It was the eighth night of Hanukkah in Kiel, Germany, a small town with a Jewish population of 500. That year, 1931, the last night of Hanukkah fell on Friday evening, and Rabbi Akiva Boruch Posner, spiritual leader of the town was hurrying to light the hanukkiah (often referred to as a menorah) before the Shabbat set in.

Directly across the Posner’s home stood the Nazi headquarters in Kiel, displaying the dreaded Nazi Party flag in the cold December night. With the eight lights of the hanukkiah glowing brightly in her window, Rabbi Posner’s wife, Rachel, snapped a photo of the hanukkiah and captured the Nazi building and flag in the background.

She wrote a few lines in German on the back of the photo. “Hanukkah, 5692. ‘Judea dies’, thus says the banner. ‘Judea will live forever’, thus respond the lights.”

The image, freezing in time a notorious piece of the past, has grown to become an iconic part of history for the Jewish community. But until just recently, not much was known about the origins of the photo.

Both the menorah and photo survived World War II, with the hanukkiah finding its way to Yad Vashem through the loan of Yehudah Mansbuch.

Mansbuch is the grandson of the woman who took the picture, and he retains the original snapshot. When Yad Vashem was putting together its plans to open the Holocaust History Museum, a team of researchers set out to learn more about this famous photo. Their inquiries led to Mansbuch, who explained how his grandmother and grandfather had lived under Nazi oppression in Kiel, Germany, eventually fleeing to then-Palestine in 1934.

Yehudah Mansbuch, the grandson of the family who took the photo, remembers:

“It was on a Friday afternoon right before Shabbat that this photo was taken. My grandmother realized that this was a historic photo, and she wrote on the back of the photo that ‘their flag wishes to see the death of Judah, but Judah will always survive, and our light will outlast their flag.’

"My grandfather, the rabbi of the Kiel community, was making many speeches, both to Jews and Germans. To the Germans he warned that the road they were embarking on was not good for Jews or Germans, and to the Jews he warned that something terrible was brewing, and they would do well to leave Germany. My grandfather fled Germany in 1933, and moved to Israel. His community came to the train station to see him off, and before departed he urged his people to flee Germany while there’s still time.”

The couple’s prescience saved an entire community; only eight of its five hundred Jews perished in the Holocaust, with the rest fleeing before the systematic slaughter began.

Today, Yehudah Mansbuch lives in Haifa (Israel) with his family. Each Hanukkah, Yad Vashem returns the now famous hanukkiah to the family, who light the candles for eight nights before returning the piece of history back to the Holocaust trust.

With thanks to Rare Historical Photos and Glenn Callcott

Update 12/31/16

Here's a photo of Yehudah Mansbuch, taking the hanukkiah back from Yad Vashem for the one week of the year!